Van Gerven award helps first-generation students

First-generation students at the University of Colorado Boulder are getting a helping hand via a new scholarship for exceptional young scholars. The awards are named after Claudia and Dennis Van Gerven, described as extraordinary CU faculty members who happen to be first-generation university students.

The CU Honors Program is seeking funds for that new scholarship and also “all-star” scholarships for Colorado honors students.

The Van Gerven First-Generation Merit Scholarships are named for “two extraordinary CU faculty members … in grateful recognition of their years of service to the Honors Program,” said Fred Anderson, professor of history, director of the honors program and himself a first-generation university student.

These scholarships are intended to aid in the recruitment from Colorado high schools of “first-generation graduates of high academic promise who wish to participate in the CU Honors Program.”

The first Van Gerven Scholarship, established in July, benefits graduates of Harrison High School, which serves an ethnically diverse student population on the South side of Colorado Springs.

“Other scholarships modeled on this one can—and, we hope, will—be created at other Colorado high schools in coming years,” Anderson said.

Van Gerven scholarships are not supported by an endowment, but rather are disbursed from current contributions to a “gift fund” account, the-least restricted form in which awards can be made by the CU Foundation.

The award for each Van Gerven scholarship will therefore vary according to the amount contributed to the specific school fund in the preceding year.

Anderson added: “We hope that this arrangement will make these scholarships attractive as a focus for continuing contributions from CU faculty members, alumni and friends of the participating high schools, local civic and community organizations, and donors interested in promoting the interests of first-generation college students.”

Anderson said he has found many faculty members at CU were first-generation students. As he has visited departments within the College of Arts and Sciences to “pitch” the Van Gerven Scholarship as an opportunity for faculty to contribute to the welfare of first-generation students by making small monthly deductions from their paychecks, “I've taken to mentioning that my brother (a high-school teacher) and I were the first ones in our family to go to college,” Anderson said.

“Then I ask if there are other profs from first-generation backgrounds in the room. It's typically around 20 percent: an unscientific sample, to be sure, but remarkably consistent across the disciplines.”

Claudia Van Gerven is a senior instructor in the CU Honors Program. Dennis Van Gerven is a professor of anthropology who has long been recognized as an exceptional teacher.

In 1998, when he was named Colorado Professor of the Year, he said: “The mission of this institution is to tap into the richness of these young people who come to us every year. In a world that is changing as fast as ours, we can't fill students’ heads with facts and assure them that those facts will get them through the next 20 or 30 years of their lives. The facts will change too fast. Stuffing their heads won't do anymore. We have to teach them to learn more actively than we have done in the past. It’s the never-ending process for learning that we have to prepare them for.”

‘Colorado All-Stars’

While Anderson works to fund the Van Gerven scholarships, he is also working to restore funding for Colorado recipients of the CU Honors Program Merit Scholarships.

At present, the university offers merit scholarships principally to non-resident students in the form of Chancellor’s Achievement Scholarships and Presidential Scholarships; merit awards for Colorado resident students funded by public money were suspended in 2009-10 to maximize the resources available for need-based financial aid.

While a variety of privately funded merit scholarships are available to resident students, none is specifically linked to participation in the CU Honors Program.

The immediate goal of the CU Honors Program Merit Scholarships is therefore to enough endowment income sufficient to make renewable half-tuition awards ($4,000 per year or $16,000 over the four years of college) available to 210 Colorado resident students who come from the top 10 percent of their high-school classes; awards are contingent on participation in the Arts and Sciences Honors Program.

These awards are informally called the “Colorado All-Stars Scholarships” because achieving the goal of 210 awards would mean that these would equal in number the athletic scholarships currently given on the Boulder campus.

Each CU Honors Program Merit Scholarship is named by the donor or organization contributing the endowment funding to sustain it in perpetuity.  The minimum contribution per named scholarship is $100,000; the requested contribution, to hedge against inflation in tuition levels, is $150,000.  Legacy gifts are encouraged, Anderson said.

For more information on the Van Gerven First-Generation Merit Scholarships (CU Foundation Fund #123612) or the CU Honors Program Merit Scholarships (The Honors Endowment Fund; CU Foundation fund #0123471), contact Micah Abram director of development at the CU Foundation, at 303-541-1465 or micah.abram@cufund.org.